Abstract:

Religious Culture and Morality Teaching classes are taught starting from fourth grades in primary school curriculum in our country (Turkey). This subject has been taught by graduates of Divinity Faculties and Primary School Religious Culture and Morality programs. In absence of a specialized teacher for that subject, it is taught by primary school teachers. The aim of that study is to specify opinions of students, who is currently at the final year of the Faculty of Education in Kırıkkale University, regarding Religious Education and Morality Teaching subject. In this phenomenologically framed research, a semi-constructed interview form has been used. The sources of interviewees’ opinions about the religion mainly obtained from families, summer Quranic Courses, social media and books. Participants have suggested that the subject Religious Education and Morality is contributing to their teaching careers and subject hours should be increased in the curriculum. The greatest task of teachers is to achieve the desired goal in education and training.  Even though curriculum, lectures and environment as efficient as they are, the teachers will make them more efficient. They should therefore be equipped with necessary knowledge, pedagogical formation, and have innovations in education and training. Otherwise, the desired efficiency of education and training in educational institutions cannot not be obtained. In the research, the opinions of the senior students of the classroom of the Education Faculty about the courses are highlighted. The primary schools in the recent education system are the first example in the Ottoman education system. This school organization dates back to Islam. In the early days of the Ottoman Empire educational institutions were not established in order to educate teachers to conduct lessons. In the period of Sultan Fatih Mehmet, a different program was envisaged in the Eyup and Hagia Sophia schools to train. However, this practice of Fatih was abandoned in the process of progressing. In 1868, a teacher's school named Dârü'l-Muallimîn-i Sıbyan, which lasted for two years, was opened in order to train teachers for teaching in primary schools for only boys. Schools named Dârü'l-Muallimât were opened in 1869 to educate teachers for refuge schools for girls. During II. Abdülhamid, II. the Constitutional Monarchy and the Republican period, studied about the primary school teachers' schools were being carried out. The schools, which were opened to train elementary school teachers in the same periods, gave religious lessons with different names in the curriculum. Since 1996, the religion course has been taught in the first semester of the 4th class under the name of Instruction of Religion Culture and Moral Education in the classroom teacher's course program. In the study, the pedagogy approach is preferred from the qualitative research designs because it is aimed to reveal the religious education experiences of the senior students of Kırıkkale University, Education Faculty, Department of Elementary Teacher Education. Appropriate sampling, based on easy accessibility measures, is used. The sample consists of a total of nineteen senior students from Kırıkkale University, Education Faculty, Department of Elementary Teacher Education has been selected from the senior students. Participating students are selected from volunteers. Semi-structured interview form is used in this study where the phenomenological pattern is used as data collection method and tool. Questions have been reviewed by the experts of relevant fields and required corrections are made. Individual, face-to-face and semi-structured interviews are conducted with volunteered students. The data has been obtained by semi-structured qualitative interviews in the direction of semi-structured interview form with nineteen students determined on a voluntary basis among senior students of the classroom teacher department. The interviews deciphered by the investigator are solved by the phenomenological coding technique. In the process, open coding has been done, the themes have been determined. The research findings that obtained by analyzing the data have been discussed in the light of related researches. It is possible to bring together the opinions of the students on the Religion Culture and Moral Education Teaching course in the framework of four dimensions: 1. Sources of Religious Knowledge: Human being is a social entity.S/he is interacting with his/her surroundings at every moment of his/her life. As a result of this interaction, learning takes place in individual. The family is the source of information on the subject of religion. 

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